Discovering Characters - A Director’s Case Study of the Background Research as Part of the Character Building Process in the Screenwriting Phase in the student film No Man’s Land
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Bachelor's thesis
Ask about the availability of the thesis by sending email to the Aalto University Learning Centre oppimiskeskus@aalto.fi
Authors
Date
2018
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Film Directing
Language
en
Pages
26+3
Series
Abstract
My objective for the thesis is to study how effective background research works as a tool helping the director to have an accurate picture of the characters and their world. In my thesis, I’m referring to case example No Man’s Land (working title), a student film made in Aalto University School of Arts and Design. The protagonist of the finished script is a refugee child. I worked closely in collaboration with the screenwriter Ilona Ahti in building the characters of No Man’s Land. My other objective is to study how our observations and perceptions of the world affect the script and the character building process. As my methods for research I have used interviews of journalists, refugee children and families, UN officials and aid workers in addition to reading books and articles related to the subject. I present our interview questions and go through their effects in my process. I’m also introducing the concept of shared awareness -content, the content shared between the director and screenwriter prior to and during the writing process in order to find common themes and identifiable characters that we both believe in. Part of my background research includes a trip to Tanzania, where I visited Nyarugusu refugee camp. I’ll analyze how the trip changed our characters and what was the trip’s influence to my directing: what will happen, when you literally step into the world of your characters? My goal as a filmmaker is to make fictional characters believable in the world where they exist. The thesis opens my personal process of creating a film that has a very different world than the one where I live in. It touches the conversation around cultural appropriation and the gaze that creates stereotypes, both of which are current topics in today’s society. I’m approaching the characters trying to find the right point of view and some similarities with the characters. I’m examining closely my own process when trying to understand the birth of a fictional character and his world.Description
Supervisor
Maylett, HannaThesis advisor
Saarela, SaaraKeywords
screenwriting, background research, characters, film, case study, cultural appropriation, stereotypes, director